Spatial light modulators provide an alternative technology to cathode ray tube (CRT) displays. A spatial light modulator array is an array of individually addressable elements, typically arranged in rows and columns. One or more individually addressable elements will correspond to a picture element of the displayed image.
The most prevalent spatial light modulator technology is liquid crystal displays (LCD), especially for mobile devices. In an LCD display, rows and columns of electrodes are used to orient a liquid crystalline material. The orientation of the liquid crystalline material may block or transmit varying levels of light, and is controlled by the voltages on the electrodes. These voltages are supplied to the array of elements according to the image data. A driver circuit, sometimes referred to as driver chip, performs the conversion from image data to the row and column addressing lines of the array. Given the prevalence of liquid crystal display technology, driver chips for LCD displays are widely available and marketed tested.
Unfortunately, the voltages used by many LCD driver chips have relatively fixed waveforms that limit their applicability to other types of spatial light modulator display technology that also require conversion of image data to row and column addressing line signals. In addition, it limits the availability of these widely-available driver circuits to other types of display technology.